Tag Archives: positive

The only thing is, it’s so easy that it can feel too good to be true and too easy to be right! Are you searching to find your happiness or naturally allowing it to happen?

Allowing it to happen naturally is usually the road less travelled because it’s well-known that hard work presents the greatest rewards and while that is true, you also need to be open to allow the fruits of your labour to flourish.

The natural embrace of allowing things to occur creates a variety of opportunities that you might not have otherwise seen because you were too focused on controlling the outcome. Being in control of your life is good but like everything variety is a necessity and too much control can diminish the element of surprise and opportunity.

When searching to find your happiness it can seem at times like things just aren’t going the way you want them and that’s because rather than trying to forcefully steer your ship against the current, you sometimes need to go with it and find the openings and opportunities along the way. Like a give and go, you advance when the opening comes and hang back when it’s time to strategize for the next leg of the journey.

I have had difficulty at times because I am a “get it done now” type of person, when I know what I want I go in that direction and patience can be my opposition. It’s difficult for me to rein it in and allow things to occur as they should because I know that ultimately the universe knows best and knows when the right time is for change to occur. I do trust that but find that I have to remind myself constantly to have faith, pay attention to the signs and watch for the opportunities because they will come, hope guides me.

“When you follow your bliss doors will open where there were no doors before and where there are no doors for anyone else” – Joseph Campbell

My perspective on this quote is that no opportunity presented behind the door will be the same for any other individual. We are all unique, no two people experience any one thing the same emotionally and our emotion is what connects us to others and helps us to determine what we like and don’t like, which in turn determines which direction we choose to go. If you are following your bliss (allowing things to occur naturally) then you are more likely to be opening those doors. If you are too focused on controlling where you want to go (searching for your happiness) then you may not even see the door of opportunity when it presents itself because you are closed off and going in one focused direction.

When you follow your bliss rather than search for it you aren’t forcing it and that is what opens up all the doors that you seek. It is that relaxed state of being that creates the moments, the opportunities, the gifts and the happiness, like the phrase “good things come to those who wait”. It doesn’t mean do nothing and wait for it, it means plant your seeds and wait for them blossom.

If you want something positive to happen in your life you first must be open to letting it in.

I don’t believe that true thoughtfulness comes from any other place than the unconditional love of the heart. There is no room in there for selfish reasons or conditions to be placed on others as tools of control or manipulation. If your intention is motivated by the desire to enrich another’s life, that is true thoughtfulness, if you are keeping score or reminding someone of your contributions, thoughtfulness is no longer what you can call it.

I believe that thoughtfulness is of close relation to karma but by thoughtful intention as well. What I mean by this is that karma (in my mind) is a result of what you put out there is what comes back to you but the intention must be in alignment with true thoughtfulness. If the intention for doing something nice for someone else is to reap the benefit of what comes back to you (the karma) then that is not true thoughtfulness but rather pre-meditated self-benefit.

If you are finding yourself in a state of anything other than true and selfless thought towards others than I believe you are denying yourself of the greater beauty to be experienced in life. There may be a deeper rooted issue going on within that is keeping you in a state that does not allow you room for personal happiness, peace, balance or growth.

I have witnessed and personally experienced true thoughtfulness from, for and with others and the expression and intention in that state of grace is magical, to say the least. For me, that expression and the feeling associated is equivalent to the magnitude of a miracle. I don’t mean that someone who is doing something selfless is doing something miraculous, I mean that the feeling for everyone involved is as momentous and significant as the feeling that could be associated with experiencing a miracle because it is a true, unconditional and selfless expression of love, whether that is family, friend or love relationships.

Living in a state of appreciation and gratitude is what inspires and motivates true thoughtfulness and I feel that we all have it at our inner core but for some, our life experiences, circumstances and choices can alter how that inner core is reflected outward.

One definite route to finding your way back to this state of appreciation and gratitude is to look outside yourself and those around you. There are many people in all parts of the world that have had life experiences and circumstances that are far worse and they have either made the conscious choice not to allow it to change their core or they don’t know any other way of life but either choice is of benefit to their inner spirit because they are choosing the positive light.

When you are choosing the positive light you are also choosing to open yourself up for all things positive; abundance in all life and love experiences. That is when you are most in alignment with the Law of Attraction and the energy needed to be in this alignment is much less than the energy needed to be out of this alignment. Crazy how sometimes we just can’t see that, but it’s so true and when you let go and allow everything to just be as it will it all flows effortlessly and magically!

Today was a day where I was thinking and reflecting about my friends of the past, friends of the present and the friends that have been with me through anything and everything. I wouldn’t say that I ever identified with one clique, friends were friends, no matter what! I’ve been absolutely blessed to have such smart, funny and beautifully unique woman in my life, even when we’ve lost touch for a period of time, we are able to pick it back up like it was just yesterday that we last spoke. That is true friendship!

We all know and were a part of each other’s history (from teen to adulthood) and I believe it really says something about who we are and what we mean to each other to still be there so many years later. I have so many great times from the past to recall, great times from the present that we’ve made together and great times from the future that I know will definitely occur.

One of the best relationships anyone will have in their life (in my opinion) is that of a true friend. Although unlike the quote below, my girls will make me walk with them, when they know I don’t like walking but when we do, we have the best time. Clearly they are much more brilliant than I.

Friendship is a gift to be loved, to be nurtured and to be cherished. Honesty, Truth, Communication and Loyalty are the most important components of any relationship and without them, it will either crumble or you will feel unfulfilled.

I thoroughly enjoyed my teens and early twenties because of these fabulous women and I really could never thank them enough for the cherished memories I have of fun and crazy times. The only way to truly articulate who they are to me and who they always will be is to say that we are kindred spirits, our paths are forever intertwined for a reason.

I know that there is a future lit up with more of the crazy shenanigans and horseplay and there’s no way I’m going to miss it!

So I looked it up and Friendship Day in Canada is the first Sunday in August but I’m having it early this year because I felt the need today to recognize the great friends I have in my life.

Based on where I thought the direction of my life was going to go when I was in my early 20’s, I found my career focus but not in the way I thought. My interests were many but I had two directions in my mind that were the frontrunners yet so very different and far apart from each other.

I’ve always been social from as far back as I can remember but in a more shy and reserved way which wouldn’t work for my first pick (from the age of 6) of what I wanted to be when I grew up, I wanted to sing. I loved music, dancing and loved to entertain and make people smile but was too shy to get up on a stage by myself, I was a closet singer basically. Looking back at it now I think the bottom line was that it obviously didn’t feel as natural to me to have that kind of career as I’d thought or I would have fought harder to get there.

My other pick was a psychiatrist/therapist (from the age of 19), these two couldn’t be any farther apart on the spectrum, could they? Of course looking back this now I realize that writing out my thoughts in a journal was a form of (self) therapy that I was already developing and in my conversations, chats or long talks with close friends or co-workers I found that there was therapy in another form. We provided therapy to each other simply by listening and caring and the occasional words of inspiration, motivation or wisdom. There is wisdom to be gained from everyone we encounter, we are all here for a reason.

The only connection I can find between these two very different career choices was my desire to make others happy, feel better, smile or just connect with them. To somehow change another’s world for the better, to make it a little bit brighter, even if just for a day, an hour or a moment is something I aspire to. I write on a more consistent basis now and continue to pursue my life of writing. There are people out there that have read my book, follow my blog and have given me positive feedback to say that I’ve either been the voice they needed at a specific time or that I gave them another perspective or option to consider. Just to know that I changed someone’s state of mind/being for the better, even for a moment is a much appreciated validation for me and is extremely humbling and incredibly motivating.

The connection I’ve realized now is that my desire to make others happy, feel better, smile or just connect with them has been not too far off from either of my initials goals. The “being a singer” goal because that form of career is a form of creativity and the “psychiatrist/therapist” goal because that form of career is to help. In essence it is a combination of the two that creates my writing career focus and has been a blessing for me in more ways than I could have ever imagined.

If you look back to the points in your life where you had your initial ideas of “what you wanted to be”, are you anywhere near it? You may be, but not in the way that you had expected, it could be an alternate path but connected at the core like mine was. It was quite a moment of “aha” to realize how much of these two very different career goals ending up blending together.

It was a direction that I never could have predicted and where I will be 20 years from now will be a prediction that I could not make either but I am definitely looking forward to finding out.

There are many inspirational, motivational and spiritual teachers out there that are available to all of us, all the time. They help us through their teachings, insight and universal wisdom and it’s as easy as picking up a book or surfing the internet but in order to absorb this wisdom you need to be open to receive it. I believe that depending on where we are at within our lives whether that is age, awareness or state of mind, it can determine how willing or open we are. For example, when I was in my 20’s I wasn’t aware of anything related to personal growth or life’s lessons, not because I was close minded but because the thoughts never even occurred. My life revolved around playing sports, having fun with friends and shopping, I didn’t start to develop awareness until my 30’s and from that awareness came a desire to discover who I was, what I wanted, where I was going and what it all meant.

I discovered that my connections with some of the people in my life began to transition to a deeper level and that I was drawn to certain individuals because they had a brighter and positive perspective, outlook and attitude. The transition to my new awareness was seamless and flowed naturally because I was more than willing to embrace it and in turn it enabled me to develop a heightened sense of intuition. I didn’t struggle with not understanding what was going on within or feeling like I was in some sort of limbo so it was hard for me to relate to those that did but somewhere in between I began to realize that none of us do anything the exact same way as the other. That is our individual and unique quality, it defines and differenciates us from one another and is to be respected.

We don’t develop, learn or find our path in the same time frame and shouldn’t be expected to or be judged for it one way or the other. No matter what stage you are at with starting to develop your awareness or just desiring it, it doesn’t matter because at least you’re aware and that’s the beginning.

The road to self-discovery isn’t always easy, everyone has an off day every now and then but if you are having more than one of these days for longer periods of time, then there may be something more going on beneath the surface that would be beneficial for you to learn what the root is. Downtime that goes on for too long is an indication that there is something deeper affecting you and chances are if you are experiencing this then you are also frustrated, may have a deep sense of sadness and/or feel alone. This is your inner voice signaling to you and letting you know that your current process needs to change because you don’t need or deserve to feel this way. It’s important that you listen to your inner voice, it is in alignment with your inner spirit and knows when something is off even if you aren’t fully aware of it yet. I didn’t always listen to mine when I should have and found that some areas of this process took me longer to reach enlightenment than necessary and because of that I was very hard on myself. That’s a natural response but of course knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to take although it did help me to lighten the blame I sometimes placed on myself.

If there is something you’re having a difficult time with, don’t judge yourself too harshly, allow yourself the time you need to learn and the time you need to heal when you experience a setback. If something has you down for too long do what is necessary to prevent yourself from staying in a perpetual state of unhappiness. We are all here for a reason and I believe it is to live the best life we can.

My favorite and most inspiring teacher/mentor is Dr. Wayne Dyer, I have learned so many new ways of thought process from him and just the other day his PBS Special “Wishes Fulfilled” was on and even though I have seen it, I watched it again. One of the many things that he spoke of during this special was something that everyone can try tonight and every night before you go to sleep that will improve your quality of life going forward. I have quoted some dialogue from his special below:

Job 33-15-16

“In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men while slumbering in their beds, then He opens the ears of men and seals their instruction.”

Your subconscious mind is most comfortable when you are unconscious. You are unconscious when you are in your sleep state and in your sleep state your subconscious state is busy at work and it’s the last 5 minutes of your day that are so important. When you are in that state between being awake and getting drowsy and going to sleep and you are going to marinate for the next 8 hours in your unconscious subconscious mind. When you’re preparing your marinade, the question is “how do you want to prepare yourself for having your instructions sealed?” Most people use the last 5 minutes of their day to review all the things that they don’t like, and all of the things that didn’t work, and all of the people that hurt their feelings, and all of the stuff that is going on in their life that they wish weren’t happening, this is their worry time. This is the time when you fill your mind with all of the stuff and then you go off into sleep and he opens your ears and seals your instructions while you are slumbering. What you want to do is reverse this practice because your subconscious mind is listening to how you are asking the universe to provide for you what it is that you would like to attract or manifest into your life and if you fill your subconscious mind with all the things you don’t want, don’t like, that make you unhappy, that make you depressed, that make you worry. Then your subconscious mind, which is impersonal, and can’t make a distinction between what it is that you are feeling as a result of what you place into your mind or what is actually happening in your life. It doesn’t distinguish one from the other, it is just open to suggestion, and here you are suggesting to your subconscious mind all the things you don’t want. What would you rather have sealed before you drift off to sleep “I am unhappy” or “I am happy”?

It was amazing to me the first time I saw this special and this particular piece was such an eye-opener to me. I’ve done this before falling asleep, reviewed my day, thought about the things that bothered me in depth and then fallen asleep with those thoughts. I hadn’t realized that one little adjustment to that could make such a huge difference in aligning me with a happier and healthier state of mind and being.

So tonight when you are in those moments before you are drifting off to sleep, let your imagination of hopes and dreams have the chance to run free. Think about all the beautiful and positive things you dreamed of as a child for what you wished for in your life and let that marinate overnight. I think you will have a different sense of self-direction and state of mind the next morning.

As we all celebrate Thanksgiving in Canada or look forward to Thanksgiving in the U.S. I wanted to acknowledge the many things in my life with honor, thanks and gratitude:

Thank-You for my Beautiful Daughter and Family:

Even though we don’t all always agree for short or even too long of periods at times, I do remember and recognize whether we have agreed or not that there are some very good moments I will always cherish and appreciate. Everything in our lives happens for a reason, some of our family members are meant to love us, challenge us and/or help us to grow. There is a specific purpose for their placement in our lives whether we want to acknowledge it or resist it will determine what we are blessed to learn. I have spent time resisting (and by that I mean being emotionally stubborn) only to discover that once I let things be as they are (give up the fight to be right, whether I was right or not) it became significantly easier on my heart and spirit.

Thank-You for my Good Health:

I have the physical capabilities to take on any task or challenge that I wish to like participating in sports or parking my car at the furthest area of a parking lot because I am more than capable to walk the distance to the door without getting tired, having trouble breathing or experiencing pain. I do not have any visual impairments or neurological delays that could inhibit me in any way. Even though we see our abilities as being a part of our everyday lives it’s important to acknowledge and appreciate that things could be much different and much more challenging and honor those that power through them with true determination and courage.

Thank-You for my Irreplaceable Friends:

Friendship is one relationship that transcends barriers on so many levels, I think especially so for women, because our most meaningful connections are preferred to be at a very deep level and we are innately more tuned to that desire. I have a select few of friends that are easily the most invaluable because like family, they can also love, challenge and help us to grow but from a different perspective. Unlike family that are born or married within the lineage, friends are drawn to each other because of similarities in our faith, hopes and desires in life.

Thanks You for my Opportunities:

I have had so many great opportunities so far and I know that there are many more to come. Opportunities haven’t always come in the form I have expected but luckily I’ve had fantastic signs and in the last 10 years I’ve been blessed to learn how to recognize them for what they are. It wasn’t always easy for me to recognize even the most obvious sign but once I tuned into my inner spirit (my gut instinct) and starting listening and allowing it to guide me the signs became more abundant and easier to read.

I have had a lot of changes through the last 15 years, some have been difficult, some have been easy, but all have been necessary. Regardless of whether they were desired or not I am thankful that they came at all and recognize that in the bigger picture they serve a purpose. Even if I don’t see or understand what that purpose may be in the now, I have faith that eventually the wisdom will come whether it is through my Family, my Health, my Friends, or my Opportunities.

We all make choices in our lives every day, some are good choices, some are bad choices, the question is, are they the right choices for you? Are you being true to the person you know you are inside, and where you envision your life to be going?

We all have positive and negative experiences but I do not believe that the experience itself is the downfall or a valid reason to hold anyone other than ourselves responsible for where we progress or don’t progress to.

All choices, good or bad, are ours to make, which makes us, the individual, the sole person responsible for where things go from there. I do believe that we have events, occurrences and situations that help to shape and teach us. Everything happens for a reason and I believe the opportunity that lies within each challenge or blessing is to create an awareness that we had not yet grown into until that time.

I’ve had the opportunity to observe many different personalities in my life so far and I know that there are many more out there that have yet to cross my path. Some of these people I thoroughly enjoyed and some not so much, but all of them have had an impact and brought about a greater awareness for me, some in areas I hadn’t really explored, and some I wasn’t yet aware of. I have learned some very valuable aspects of life from very specific people, ones I really don’t think I could do well without. Regardless of the lessons, challenges or blessings I have experienced so far, the outcome and how I perceive things from then on, whether I’m stuck in a good or bad mindset is mine alone.

I’ve come across some very inspiring individuals that have blown me away emotionally because at the core they are truly beautiful, in ways that has absolutely nothing to do with anything in the physical.

I have come across others that are the polar opposite and fully believe that life and society has failed them, owes them and they are not responsible for any of the bad circumstances or choices that have plagued their lives.

There are various degrees of both of these drastic and opposite personalities but the one thread that seems common to me is that regardless of the challenge we all have the choice to let it inhibit us from personal growth and happiness or let it help us to flourish and experience a better and more meaningful existence.

Are you making the right choices for you and being true to your conscious and sub-conscious self?

Are you making the right choices for where you see yourself 5, 10, 15 or 20 years down the road?

Are you making the right choices for a personal happiness plan ( PHP ) that is in better alignment with who you really are within?

Are you making the choices that don’t leave you with regrets when closing in on the last chapter of your life?

I think we’ve all had our moments of making good and bad choices, it’s how we handle them from there that defines us.